1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a character for use in a video game and to a method for providing such character. The present invention also relates generally to providing a character or avatar for a computer or video display.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer games are becoming increasingly popular among players of all ages. Among the types of computer games are computerized versions of existing games such as the common solitaire card game, chess or pinball games. A popular genre of computer games is the role-playing game in which the player assumes control of a character in the game and moves the character through various environments depicted on the computer or video screen. These role-playing games include so-called first person shooter games, such as Doom, in which the player looks out of the eyes of the character into the environment in which the character is moving, and generally does not see their own character on screen. In other words, the player has a first person perspective of the character that the player controls. There are also so-called third person shooter games that have the player looking over the shoulder of the character being controlled.
In another type of game, a top-down perspective is provided. The environment of the game is seen from an air-borne view. A related type of game provides a third person perspective view of the game environment. In this type of game, the player controls the actions of a character that appears on screen as viewed by a third person. This character is moved through the environment displayed on the screen and interacts with articles and other characters shown on the display. The environment or virtual world depicted on the display may be two-dimensional or three-dimensional and the character moves through and interacts with this virtual world under the control of the player.
Examples of some of the types of role playing computer games available are military and combat games where the character is fighting other characters on the screen, sports games where the character plays a sport such as golf, and adventure games where the character undertakes various adventures, although many other types of games are available. Examples of some themes of the games are: fantasy role playing, sci-fi role playing, historical, horror, and various combinations thereof.
The role playing games are a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling, centered on a script provided by the game developer. In role-playing games, participants play the parts of characters in an imaginary world that is organized, adjudicated, and sometimes created by the game developer or by a game master or narrator. The game developer's role is to provide a world and a cast of characters for the players to interact with, and to adjudicate how these interactions proceed. In addition, the game developer may also be responsible for advancing some kind of storyline or plot, albeit one which is subject to the somewhat unpredictable behavior of the players.
In a sense, the players are the actors who play the heroes, improvising more freely while the game developer plays all the supporting roles (ranging from villain to victim) and keeps them at least partly limited to the script that the developer had in mind as the writer. At the same time, the game developer directs or referees the outcome of each decision, and these decisions produce and stage the game setting. The role-playing game is not won or lost in the traditional sense of playing a card game or sporting match, but is based on the enjoyment that the player receives from playing the game. In one sense, the only way to lose the game is to not enjoy playing it.
Over the past ten years, improvements to video game graphics and visual effects have resulted in dramatically realistic game worlds. New games focus on improved graphics, realistic scenery, and better sound effects. While these developments have brought the player closer to the game's internal world, games have not yet fully accomplished the effect of bringing the player completely into the game's world.
The first step toward player interactivity has been the creation and rising popularity of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG). MMOGs permit many players to participate simultaneously with one another. The decisions that these players make and their level of cooperation with one another provides the storyline of the game. In general, these games are non-competitive in nature and enable the players to determine the success or failure of their character based on their interaction with the virtual world as opposed to competing with one another. Within these digital worlds, the majority of player satisfaction comes from the social interactions with other players in online games. In these types of games, players associate themselves far more closely with their online characters than in any previous genre of gaming.
An increasingly popular genre of on-line game is the so called Massively (or Massive) Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). This is a multiplayer computer role playing game that enables thousands of players to play in an evolving virtual world at the same time over the Internet. MMORPGs are a particular type of MMOG. One popular MMORPG is World of Warcraft which currently has more than three million subscribers. In order to accommodate so many players, this game has a hundred separate game worlds.
The MMOG marketplace is unique in the videogame industry because it has monthly subscription plus initial software revenues. Unlike traditional console or PC games, each player must have a subscription account to the game and cannot share or borrow access to the game (such as by borrowing a cartridge or CD). In addition, these games are exceptionally “sticky”, with some games having over 100,000 players who have had subscriptions for at least eight years.
In these and other role-playing games, the player assumes a character or avatar (a graphical representation of the character) at the beginning of the game and moves that character through the various virtual environments in the game while performing various complex tasks in order to achieve rewards. For instance, the achievement of some tasks results in the character receiving better weapons, different clothing, or being provided with better skills or abilities. A character's power usually represents how much time is invested in playing the game. Casual players may play a few hours per week but so-called hardcore gamers may spend 40 hours or more per week playing a particular game. Not surprisingly, players of these games have developed their own terms and slang, which are too extensive and transient to go into here. Long-term play of role-playing games results in the player developing an affinity for the chosen character and in some sense the character becomes the alter ego for the player.
This alter ego association of the player and character increases the player's enjoyment of the game. The character, and thus the player, is rewarded for accomplishing complex tasks in the game and the player feels good about these accomplishments. These rewards may be better skills or abilities, or better material goods (in the virtual world) such as shinier armor. Further, the types of games with the most emotional impact are those where the player is playing himself or herself, while the weakest are those in which the player simply controls the outcome of the game via skill. In the top emotional impact games, the player identifies and associates with the character he or she is playing, i.e. feeling sadness, excitement, fear, joy, plus any other emotion that the character is exhibiting on the screen.
Computer games may run on a stand alone computer or may run on a computer connected to a network to interact with other computers, for instance in peer-to-peer networking, or with one or more server computers following a client-server model. The Internet is increasingly becoming the network of choice for network game play, also known as on-line gaming. The server computers that host the game store the information describing the persistent virtual worlds of the game as well as information on each of the characters in the game. The character information includes, in one example, a wireframe definition of the character that determines movements, general shape and size, an appearance layer that is applied to the wireframe to define the avatar's appearance, and an outerwear layer such as clothing, armor, helmets or hats, weapons, and the like. The wireframe is set by the game developer and determines the character's movements. The appearance layer generally remains unchanged throughout the game. The character usually begins with a set outerwear layer, and some articles of the outerwear may change during the course of the game depending on accomplishments during the game.
The inventors have recognized a problem with the characters or avatars in role-playing games in that the same basic character set is utilized by all players of the game. A player of a multiplayer game may find themselves in a room or area in the virtual world of the game with the characters or avatars of many other players and all of the characters look alike, or they differ from other characters only in insubstantial ways, such as hair color or facial hair. The inventors have recognized a second problem with the characters or avatars of these role playing games, in particular that the characters remain basically unchanged during the course of play. The storyline of the game becomes increasingly more interesting and more challenging as the player plays the game, and the advancement of play may even have the characters developing greater strength and abilities and becoming more powerful or faster, but the on-screen appearance of the character or avatar is the same one with which the player began the game.
A player that starts a game with a chosen character and temporarily leaves the game has the identity of that player's character stored on the server (or servers) so that when the player returns to play the game, the same character is provided to the player and the accomplishments and status of the character are at the same level as when the player stopped playing. In the World of Warcraft game, for example, the same character is used by the player through all sixty levels of the game.